Lest you think this doesn't involve mechanics or motors; well it does.

At the end of the last season, I ran the mower dry so there wouldn't be any stale gas to have to clean up this Spring. So far; so good.
Well, yesterday, I finally succumbed to 'she who must be obeyed' and set out to de-thatch the front lawn.

Hauled the lawn mower out and laid it over on it's side so I could change the cutting blade for the one with the wire spring thing on it. Being the ever conscientious fellow I am, I pulled the spark plug wire so there would be no change of accidental firing while pushing the blades around during the change.
While I'm under there, I take the opportunity to chip off the last bit of the previous season's grass, dirt mung and accumulated fungal growths.

Everything is set; lay the mower back down and proceed to check the oil and fill it with fresh gas.
All that done and it's time to pull the cord.......................10 pulls and nothing happens???.........another 10 pulls and still no signs of life

So now I'm thinking I'm going to have to tear down the carburetor and clean out all the lovely green stuff

Decided to take a beer brake(yes, everything comes to a complete halt for this event) before getting all covered with stale gas and oil....good idea

Twenty minutes later, I have produced several yard waste bags full of thatch, grass, moss and small animals that had been hiding in the dense growth(just kidding, no animals were hurt in the actual process ).

Ok; so that was the easy part...now I have to figure out how to avoid putting fertilizer on the darn grass. I may not be the brightest light in the shed but, even I know that that stuff makes the grass grow like crazy, and I'm not a big fan of mowing the lawn

Did the back yard this afternoon; it's 5 times as large as the front lawn!
This was not as bad as I had anticipated as it only took to complete and I didn't even have any grass/hay fever symptoms

Those are some of the rites of Spring...what are you guys having to put up with?

similar problem with the grass but here in the Northwest it is moss that is the bane of spring. Actually had to mow the first time in February as the winter was pretty mild. Ready for the third cutting now. Escaped for today as the F-1 was on Tivo and if I did not watch it, someone would have tipped me about the winner at work tomorrow. Maybe it will rain most of the week so I can mow next Saturday.

Spark plug wire, the obvious one. Who hasn't missed upon that one at some time?

When I cut my lawn for the first time three weeks ago, the lawnmower would start up at once but it seemed as if the choke remained on and it died after about a minute. I was ready to go yell STUPID CARBURETTOR and stuff, took off the air cleaner and found the air cleaner gasket to be in front of the air intake. Just removed the silly piece of paper and it ran like it ran at the end of last season. I'm letting the grass grow a bit longer now so the moss won't grow over it, I'll cut it for the third time by the end of this week.

Cleaned the rest of the garden a bit in the meantime, cut back some plants, removed needles left by the pines (really hate those trees, they'll have to go one of the next years), 2 VW Touran loads full of needles (all seats removed) and chipped wood, lots of it! Had a pile of branches 6 m long, 2 m wide and 1.5 high (that is, after laying there for a whole winter, it was higher than I am tall), now reduced to 3m³ of chipped wood, ready to be spread under plants and around trees.

Today I cleaned the roof - flat roofed house, no big deal, just the usual collection of dirt. Oh yeah, collected two buckets of cones today. Next weekend I'll cut a tree with my brother, clean up the mess behind the garage as nettles are growing like hell now and collect some more cones. After that I'll have to filter the compost that's been lying for a year and turn over the pile we've been building for a year. And after that it'll be cutting the hedges and collecting cones I think. I HATE THOSE PINE TREES. They'll burn well in my stove!

And oh yeah, I'll have to keep quiet from time to time because it will have to sleep and after that it will need to have it's diaper changed and the other it will need some attention too. Looking forward to summer - especially this one!